If all goes as planned, Vail will grow by nearly 900 acres, bringing its skiable terrain to 5,000 acres, the most in the continental United States. Steamboat will pad its position as the second-biggest Colorado resort when it adds 950 acres, bringing its total terrain to 3,600 acres. And Telluride will boost its acreage from 1,050 acres to more than 1,700.

The expansions are part of the ski industry's steady march across the Rockies throughout the last 30 years, including recent additions at Copper Mountain, Snowmass and Loveland.

And they won't be the last. Aspen Highlands is studying the possibility of adding to its terrain, Arapahoe Basin wants greater snowmaking capabilities so it can extend the ski season through the summer. And Aspen Skiing Co. is planning a gondola between Snowmass and Buttermilk.

Contesting the newest trio of projects is a formidable alliance of environmentalists who say skiers will benefit at the expense of high-country ecology.

An array of environmental groups from the Front Range and the Western Slope have formally asked the Forest Service to reconsider or modify the Telluride and Vail expansions. If those appeals fail, the groups say they'll consider taking the issue to federal court. Steamboat generated far less controversy, in part because environmentalists have focused most of their attention on Vail.

Ski companies  trying to comply with myriad laws, placate environmental concerns and boost their corporate image  have taken several approaches.

Steamboat has used computer-imaging to plot out how a ski trail will look from afar before it's actually built on the mountain. Vail is laying out terrain around critical wildlife habitat; Telluride's development will skirt rare plants.

Refereeing it all is the U.S. Forest Service  with the complicated, often thankless task of trying to balance the desire to protect nature with calls for economic growth and the recreational wants of ski-lovers. It's the Forest Service that holds the key to most expansions, since it supervises the federal lands often needed for ski terrain.

Together, the process represents a case study in modern sensitivities to the environment  from the lengths companies will go to appear responsible, to the demands of environmentalists weary of what they see as man's relentless march into the wild, to the tenuous position of government agencies trying to appease different parties.

No one  not even ski resort operators  denies that expansion will do some damage to nature. Where people disagree is quantifying the impact of building new ski terrain and what should be done to ease the effect on the environment.

"It's like getting a priest, a rabbi and a minister all in the same room and getting them to agree on one religion," said Jeff Burch, the Forest Service's supervisor for Telluride's expansion. In the end, he said, "We never succeed in making everybody happy."

Still, environmentalists complain the ski resorts are getting away with too much. And, they complain, the Forest Service is an accessory to the problem, caving in to what the ski resort wants instead of forcing the companies to take less profitable approaches for the sake of environmental concerns.

"The question is, are our public lands being managed by public managers or by private interests?" said Marianne Moulton, assistant director of the Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project, a Nederland-based environmental group that has joined the appeal against Vail's expansion. "It has been the case with timber companies and timber sales. Now it's the case with ski areas."

Whatever the case, building a bigger ski area is rarely easy. Federal law requires that projects on federal land  like national forests  first undergo an Environmental Impact Statement, an exhaustive assessment of how the project would affect plants, animals, soils, vegetation and a litany of other subjects.

In Telluride, for example, biologists studying the effects of potential ski area layouts discovered construction of a certain ski lift could destroy snow willow plants  habitat for the rare Uncompahgre fritillary butterfly.

Far to the north, in Steamboat, officials documented how the expansion would alter the view of Pioneer Ridge from U.S. 40 and downtown.

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